Over the holidays, we toured some of the wineries of Monterey County and Mendocino. The notes of those trips are in the â€œTouringâ€ folder. Along the way, we picked up some bottles and consumed a few of them. The ones that are loosely Alsatian are detailed here.

â€™97 Bernardus Pinot Gris â€œEstateâ€: This grows in the Cachagua area of Carmel Valley, where grapes for Bernardusâ€™s red â€œflagshipâ€ wine Marinus, are grown, as well as grapes for Durney Vnydâ€™s Cab, Georisâ€™s Merlot, and Galanteâ€™s Cabs. (The winery tasting room has a beautiful photo, dominating one wall, of the Cachagua valley, showing each of the vineyards nestled kitty-corner to each other and the giant Comsat earth station antenna)
I doubted the ability of Pinot Gris to flourish in such a hot area. Indeed, this Pinot Gris tastes very different than many of the Oregon efforts or lower cuvees from Alsatian producers (I havenâ€™t tried any single vnyd VTâ€™s yet). Theyâ€™re hard to describe from a spice-rack approach, but they taste like those PGâ€™s Iâ€™ve mentioned, just with more intense and ripe flavors. Acid is present and balanced in this wine. It was a refreshing white wine, not overdone at all. My notes donâ€™t indicate oak, and Iâ€™m wracking my brain to think if there was any---I would expect a lot of it in a Bernardus wine. Very nice, and Iâ€™m probably going to go pick some more up the next time Iâ€™m in the area.

â€™97 Navarro Gewurztraminer â€œCuvee Traditionalâ€: I like Navarroâ€™s whites a lot. Their tasting room was pouring three dry Gewurzs; this was one of them. Why I donâ€™t drink more of these, I donâ€™t know---probably cause you canâ€™t find them anywhere unless youâ€™re on their mailing list. This was the cheapest of their three offerings, and the one that we bought the most of. Yeah, theyâ€™re probably down in concentration in â€™97 than in other years (I donâ€™t know that for certain; just repeating what Iâ€™ve heard) and the cuvee traditional didnâ€™t taste as overdone as the Estate from that year did. A very nice finish caps off aromas of lychee, pineapple, and hints of roses (I still think Claiborne & Churchillâ€™s Gewurz is the U.S. reference for that aroma). Nice Gewurz â€œbiteâ€. Ludicrously underpriced at $11.

â€™94 Navarro Gewurztraminer â€œEstateâ€: Had this with a Cajun-style pasta and it was a pretty good match. Looking back, it was bigger than the 97 cuvee traditional, with aromas of grapefruit, white pepper and more lychee. Very nice. The Gewurz was aging quite nicely by this example, and some more time probably wouldnâ€™t hurt it any.